Book Group Mainstays

A list of titles picked out for Book Group Mainstays.

Bel Canto: A NovelPatchett, Ann

In an unnamed South American country, terrorists take an American opera star and Japanese and European tourists hostage. Their time in exile together provides an intense, fascinating look at human relationships.

Nearing death, Rev. John Ames recounts his family's history and the lessons he learned from his father and as a pastor in a rural Iowa community, in an epistle to his small son who will grow up without him.

In a complex and moving historical novel, powerfully portrayed characters, both Jewish and Christian, protect Jewish refugees at great cost to themselves during the World War II German occupation of Italy.

After the invasion of Shanghai by Japan in the mid 1930’s, two sisters leave a glamorous life for arranged marriages in Los Angeles. There they are met with humiliating treatment and difficult choices.

The psychological damage we hide beneath the surface of our everyday lives is the subject of this novel-in-stories about the people in small-town Maine and one woman, Olive Kitteridge, with a cold exterior.